Homepage

Back

Archives

Former Pentagon Program Analyst, Chuck Spinney gave a lecture on “Washington and its Hall of Mirrors” on Sept. 29. Using a PowerPoint presentation containing charts and graphs, he summed up most of the work he has been engaged in over the years.

The foundation for Spinney’s lecture was centered upon the following quotation from James Madison: “A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both.”

Titling his presentation “Versailles on the Potomac: A quick trip through an American hall of mirrors,” Spinney believes that today’s political administration is analogous to Louis XIV’s rule in France-- where the common people are viewed as a support system, suffering while the nobility is content.

He spoke about the current defense budget in comparison to the past, how the defense budget is not resolving the Pentagon’s problems and he analyzed the federal budget, showing how it is diminishing the ability to cope with other long-term predicaments. “Throwing out money isn’t going to fix things,” Spinney stated. “How can we spend this kind of money and still find ourselves overextended?”

Spinney received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Lehigh University, a master of business administration degree from the University of Central Florida; he pursued doctoral work at George Washington University.

In the late 1970s, Spinney began his career at the Pentagon’s Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation, a department designed to make outside evaluations of the Pentagon’s policies. Shortly afterward he started the report called “Defense Facts of Life,” more commonly known as the “Spinney Report.” After 30 years at the Pentagon, he retired this past May.

This lecture was sponsored by the Center for Peace and Justice Education.